A Brief History
In the United States, 2022 was dubbed the year where an “epidemic of violence” soared across the United States in response to the normalization of hate against the LGBTQ+ community, with transgender people singled out in particular. A surge of fascist intimidation from groups such as Patriot Front, Proud Boys, and other white supremacist/Christo-fascist/neo-Nazi groups made its way to cities all across Texas – in particular, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. Fascists would show up to drag shows and harass, intimidate, and threaten both drag performers, the attendees, and the venues that hosted them.
Throughout 2022, the Space City Anarchist Organization or SCAO (In coalition with other groups such as Screwston Antifascist Committee and others) successfully defended multiple venues against against fascist threats.
In July of 2022, SCAO and Screwston mobilized a defense of an LGBTQ+ bar hosting a drag show. In September of 2022, SCAO successfully utilized a black bloc defense to defend an LGBTQ+ affirming church in Katy, Texas (a nearby Houston suburb) during their drag show, with a few physical confrontations with Christo-fascists and neo-Nazis on the ground. In October 2022, SCAO mobilized people to protest against Christofascist anti-trans commentator Matt Walsh’s speech at the University of Houston. In December 2022, SCAO defended another bar that hosted a drag show against a far-right Dallas-based group called Protect Texas Kids.
With SCAO reviving the Houston Anarchist Bookfair in 2023, SCAO has been up to a variety of community-building and direct actions, including but not limited to: feeding/clothing the unhoused on a regular basis, operating a Free Store, banner drops, disaster response, zine and harm reduction supply distribution, and continued direct actions/demonstrations
The Current Landscape of Houston and Texas
Houston is often referred to one of the “blue dots” (progressive city) in a “red state” (conservative state). As is the case with most major cities, Houston joins Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, and McAllen, in gathering progressives of all strokes. However, due to the complicated relationship that Houston has with its surrounding conservative state, people moving out of the state to seek politically safer places to live in the USA, or the urban sprawl of the city making it hard to sustain communities – we do not have a very “established” radical scene here, compared to other major cities such as Chicago, Portland, New York City, Philadelphia, or D.C.,
Below, we will explore a couple of weaknesses and strengths of Houston (and Texas as a whole) to help you understand our conditions
Weakness: Urban Geography, Infrastructure, and Transit
One of the greatest challenges to organizing in Houston, Texas is its urban geography. When Texans say “Houston”, they don’t just mean its urban center hosting 450,000 people- they mean the sprawling metropolitan area of around 10,000 square miles (26,000 sq. km) with somewhere around 7 million people living in it.
Cars, besides being expensive and environmentally unsustainable, also come with another downside: another avenue for surveillance. Your car’s license plate is tied to your legal identity, and thousands of cameras located across the city record your every movement into a database for use by local law enforcement. Movement is inaccessible, expensive, and monitored closely.
One method Texan organizers have adopted to avoid surveillance is carpooling and drop-off locations. For actions involving a large group of people, it’s better to meet at a free, inconspicuous parking lot far from the location of the action and carpool to get closer. For actions requiring black bloc, groups have to find a place to change into their bloc, away from cameras that can trace their car. Coordinating an action is not as simple as “show up here at this time”- if you’re not deliberate from the moment you leave your home, it’s easy for your actions to be traced back to your legal identity.
Area for Opportunity: Political Culture
The politics of many Texans skew dangerously right-wing, and many are obsessed with the idea of “freedom”-with a flawed definition. To your average conservative Texan, capitalism is synonymous with freedom. Texans don’t like centralized government; individuals, and by extension, their businesses, should be free to do whatever they please, regardless of the effect on society. Billionaires worked hard to earn their money, and deserve to keep it; after all, the American Dream promises that any individual can become wealthy, if they simply work hard enough. Many Texans believe in rugged individualism, where you must struggle to survive on your own. If you’re poor, it’s your fault. Voting for a “socialist” (a title our barely left-leaning Democrats have unfairly earned) means voting against your freedom, against your capacity to accrue wealth.
From the outside, it’s easy to assume anyone who voted for Donald Trump must be equally racist & bigoted, and far beyond the influence of “woke” politics. In reality, there are many different kinds of people who voted red in the last few presidential elections; there’s a big difference between Trump voters and Trump supporters.
One of our authors illustrates this contrast:
“My Papa Dave is wealthy. He retired from his job as board director for a corporation with millions in his bank account, and paid a crew to build a brand new house in the suburbs of Houston for him and his wife to spend the rest of their days in. Dave paid for tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway in New York, but left the theater 30 minutes in because “it was too woke”. When Dave began making arrangements for his and his wife’s burial, he paid extra to get a plot at the cemetery that wasn’t directly beside a Vietnamese family’s plot. Dave attended Trump rallies in each presidential election season, showing off homemade signs with pejoratives against the Democratic opposition. Dave’s wife believed Biden was the Antichrist. Dave voted for Trump.
My Papa Kenny has never been wealthy. He lives in a modest 2 bedroom house with a roommate in Pasadena, and collects firearms as a hobby. He’s a member of the NRA, and tells me the Black Panthers were “badass”. One of his best friends is a single mom that immigrated to Texas from Malaysia. On Thanksgiving, he volunteers to serve meals at a soup kitchen. When I came out as trans to him, he simply said “that makes sense, you never seemed like a girl to me” and switched to using my new pronouns immediately. Kenny stopped hanging out with his cop buddies after they told stories of abuse of power. Kenny also voted for Trump.
While Texans like Dave are unlikely to ever be swayed to our side, many that vote Republican only do so because ti is just 1 of 2 terrible options in our two-party state. A lot of Texans value individual freedom more than identity politics, and have simply been conditioned by omnipresent propaganda that their only options are Blue (gun control & taxes) or Red (gun rights &free speech). With the right words and actions, maybe we can show people like Kenny that voting is simply choosing your oppressor, and there are other steps we can take.”
Weaknesses: Fascist State Crackdowns
Texas is Ground Zero for both Trump’s administration and the Texas Attorney General’s “war on Antifa”. On September 25, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a “National Security Presidential Memorandum” titled “NSPM-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”. This public memo explicitly targets “anti-fascism, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” which the President says requires a “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Additionally, on October 7, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a state operation with a press release titled “Undercover Operations to Infiltrate and Uproot Leftist Terror Cells in Texas After Increased Political Violence” after the killing of fascist podcaster Charlie Kirk.
Currently, NSPM-7/Trump’s federal designation of “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization has led to real-life consequences here in Texas and the Texas AGs state operations have real-life consequences. Twelve people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are currently federally charged with rioting, attempted murder, and material support for terrorism in connection with an immigrant solidarity demonstration at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center on July 4, 2025. The majority of defendants are expected to plead not guilty, however, federal prosecutors are offering early plea deals with recommended sentences of up to 15 years in prison.
The Prairieland case has been hailed by the Trump administration as the first legal case against Antifa. FBI director Kash Patel called the defendants “Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremists,” sharing Fox News coverage of the case on Twitter.
The various cases stem from a noise demonstration in solidarity with ICE detainees at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4, 2025. Toward the end of the demonstration, an officer with the Alvarado Police Department arrived and allegedly quickly became involved in an exchange of gunfire with someone else on the scene.
The officer sustained minor injuries, and was released from the hospital shortly afterwards. Ten people were arrested at the scene or shortly after, and a manhunt ensued in the subsequent days for another defendant. Eight more defendants were arrested ni the days and weeks following the protest.
Learn more (and support the DFW political prisoners by writing letters of support or by donating legal funds) at [dfwsupportcommittee.wordpress.com.]
Strength: The Most Ethnically Diverse City in the USA
Many are not aware that Houston is the most diverse city ni the United States, with Texas being the 2nd most diverse state ni the country. There are over 150+ languages spoken in Houston alone and there are more LGBTQ+ people in the state of Texas than there are in the entirety of Canada. Houston is truly a tapestry of rich immigrant cultures, where you can find any fusion food your heart can dream of and explore the rich art (visual, musical, or otherwise) of the Latino and African-American populations that have called Houston their home for centuries.
Compared to our established blue-city counterparts (Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, etc.), the Houston organizing scene is ever-evolving and does not have a lengthy history of radical organizing.
There are a couple of reasons for this – residing in a conservative state, being a somewhat newer city compared to other cities in the US, and urban sprawl all contribute to this. However, because the organizing scene of Houston is equally as diverse as its residents (and we do not have a super-established clique of organizers or groups that “run” things), it is fairly easy to break into anarchist, antifascist, or general anti- authoritarian organizing if you know where to look.
Although this lack of radical history may be seen to our detriment, the opportunity for radicals to develop their own networks and participate in direct action without the weight of an “established” scene opens up many possibilities in employing a diversity of tactics to resist the fascist state.
Our Shared Struggle: From Texas, to Palestine, to the EU
Although the struggles we face here may seem unique in comparison to yours, dear reader, we ask that you consider the linkages between the struggles us Texans face and where you may reside in the world.
If you reside in the European Union, the mass surveillance that has been building within its member states can be seen with the new bio-metric digital IDs that are slowly being mandates among its unconsenting residents. If engaged in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, Israeli surveillance tech that is used to terrorize, starve, and murder Palestinians is being exported back into the EU member states that fund them in their war against refugees and “unwanted” populations, while making its way to the United States (and specifically Texas) to target political dissidents and immigrant populations. Crackdowns on free speech in EU member states closely resemble the new laws passed in Texas that restrict public protest and freedom of expression.
Our struggle against tyrannical surveillance states that seek to control and restrict their populations from dissent is one and the same. As legislatures and heads of state around the world turns towards yet another dark chapter in reactionary politics – with political movements that trade in the business of hate and repression rising to power in places such as (but not limited to) the Czech Republic, UK, Italy, Poland, France, Germany, Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, Sudan, Israel, and the United States – international solidarity is critical now more than ever to work towards liberation of all oppressed peoples.Now that you know a little more about us, what we do, and our work, we would like to ask you for your support in building international solidarity – from Amsterdam (or wherever you are reading this from) to Texas.
So, how can you support Texans?
Texans need your help. Our state is run by Christian Nationalist theocrats, and the mainstream “opposition” is not wiling (or capable) to think outside of the box of outdated electoral strategies to tackle the fascist threats we face. There are a couple of ways that you can support us:
Skills
If you have been in the anarchist, anti-fascist, or anti-authoritarian scene for quite a while, you may have skills that our people can benefit from. No need to recreate the wheel when it’s already been invented. Want to host a virtual workshop on something that would help us organize or resist more effectively? Consider inviting us! Have a written resource that you think we should read to improve how we resist? Send it to us!
Resources/Funds
Have some extra organizational funds on hand that you don’t know what to do with? Consider sending us a monthly donation at our
OpenCollective, [https://opencollective.com/space-city-ao| where you can find our various projects.
We use funds to: regularly feed the unhoused and immigrant communities, print zines, distribute harm reduction/contraceptive supplies, host community workshops, and support expenses related to direct actions.
Have a spot for us to crash when we visit Europe for anarchist bookfairs? Have a resourceful zine file that may benefit our community? Have any other resources that may benefit us? Please feel free to offer!
Reach
No skills, resources, or money spare? Follow our Instagram (@spacecityao) and Bluesky (@spacecityao) and boost any of our calls- to-action or fundraising posts. As much as social media can be a hellscape and is increasingly becoming monopolized by Big Tech, unfortunately it is one of the best ways to reach people to take action and raise funds.
Awareness
Now that you know a little more about us, we also encourage you to educate the comrades around you about who we are and what we do.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Texans, American Southerners, or Americans – ranging from myths that we are uneducated, that we “voted” for our oppressors (and therefore deserve it), that we are a monolithic culture, and that there is no one doing resistance work in the heart of the empire. You can always point these naysayers to us and our work!
And, as always, encourage your comrades to reach out to us to see how we can build a better world in the ruins of the old.
In solidarity, Maria and Luke.